Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black Confederate soldiers
A textbook distributed to Virginia fourth-graders says that thousands of African Americans fought for the South during the Civil War — a claim rejected by most historians but often made by groups seeking to play down slavery’s role as a cause of the conflict.
Local schools use history book with error about black soldiers
The book is being used by fourth-graders in Norfolk and fourth- and fifth-graders in Chesapeake. In Suffolk, it is not the official textbook, but it is used as a resource for fourth grade.
Virginia Beach schools also use it as an optional resource for fifth grade, and Tuesday the School Board considered adopting it as a primary text.
I remember the history book we used in elementary school that basically said slavery was a good thing. It didn’t jibe with the stories my father told me about his grandfather, who had been a slave. But that was in the 1960s, not 2010.
This is beyond ridiculous.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
One of the shocks of growing up in New York and then moving to Virginia while in Middle School was this subject. It was if I had just been taught the wrong things. I remember getting into a fight with a friend because he was 100% sure that the North had fired upon Ft. Sumter, not the other way around.
It was like living in Bazarro World. Weird to see the PR War is still going on 145 years after the real war ended.
The writer of this text apparently used “Internet research” leading her to information created by the Sons of Confederate veterans. We better take a good look at the rest of her book to see what else might be screwed up.
I’d vote for just tossing it if she believes the Sons of Confederate Veterans is a reliable site for research on this issue.
I am an active member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Our organization has many members who are either of Negro or Latino heritage. In order to be a member, one must show a genealogical link to someone who served in the CSA. While some of our “African American” members trace their connection to a Negro militia member or other member of the CSA, with the growth of racially blended families, some of our members who identify as, “African American” trace their connection to the Confederate forces to a White soldier or sailor.
If Barrack Obama had a son, his son could claim membership in the SCV through his wife’s Confederate ancestors.
The entire premise of the SCV is to provide a truthful telling of the history of the Confederate era, NOT to provide any slanted view or fabricated versions.
The SCV sponsors ongoing historic research with the only requirement placed upon the researcher, being that the whole truth be told.
What I have learned over my two decades as a Life Member of the SCV, is that various events and details of the War for Southern Independence, are still rigorously debated. The main difference between the SCV and various “revisionist historians” is that all of the material and archives are made available for researchers to make conclusions and to debate the merits of the research in the public square.
The SCV and our sister organization, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, provide superbly researched and archived information on the Confederate era.
The preponderance of scholarly work on the Confederacy is conclusive in that there were, in fact, Negroes, both freed men and slaves, who remained loyal to their respective Confederate states, including serving as both support roles and in a limited number of instances, in combat positions.
It is a fact that the CSA government debated the merits of creating all Negro regiments before the idea was proposed in the Union.
We do have records of some Negroes serving in local militia groups in the South, as well as significant numbers of Latino and several Indian tribes serving in the Confederate Army.
When reading the Union version of the history from that period, it is prudent for the reader to recognize that war time propaganda was the norm. One instance that I recently discovered was a Negro militia that served in New Orleans. In the Union record, the Negro militia was described as loyalists. In the historic documents in New Orleans, it was recorded that the Negro militia served the Confederacy until the Union captured the town, then the Negro militia was asked by the Union force commander to sign an oath to serve the Union occupation forces. Some of the Negro militia did sign the pledge, while others refused and returned to their homes.
The SCV does not promote the idea that there were any specific number of Negro Confederates, but the evidence support that there were Negroes who participated in either support roles and a few who were armed combatants, but any description of “thousands” must be counting all of the slaves/servants who remained loyal during and in some cases, after the war.